This proposal is in response to Program Announcement PAR-00-022 to continue the MBRS-IMSD Program at Rutgers University-Newark. Currently, we are beginning our nineteenth year of continuous funding. The current proposal is to maintain the existing MBRS-IMSD faculty and to add five additional faculty members for a total of 16 faculty members. [unreadable] [unreadable] We propose to provide training and support for ten undergraduate students and eleven graduate students to enable them to perform original biomedical research. The main goals of the proposed continuation of our MBRS-IMSD program are: 1) to increase the number of qualified applicants into the Program, 2) to improve the academic performance and, thereby, the competitiveness of the students in our program, 3) to increase the number of students entering a career in biomedical research, and 4) to continually improve our MBRS program's responsiveness to the needs of its participants. The specific objectives and methods to achieve these goals are specified in the proposal. [unreadable] [unreadable] The productivity of our MBRS program until now has included the production of 16 PhD degrees, 18 master's degrees, 71 bachelor's degrees, and four post-doctorates. We propose several means of maintaining and increasing the level of productivity. A significant improvement was provided with the addition of the career counselor, who has been invaluable in catching potential problems and working with the students to maintain their progress in the program. They and she have identified and solved many problems. What has emerged through this counseling is the need for specific training in scientific/technical writing. Meeting this need will be a major objective of this proposal. [unreadable] [unreadable]